I joined the military delayed enlistment program in 1999 and left for basic in June of 2000, wide-eyed and idealistic, believing in the oath to “support and defend the Constitution.” Back then, the barracks were a mosaic of identities—Black, white, Latino, gay, straight, Christian, atheist. We ribbed each other mercilessly, but when the dust settled, we stood as one. The military taught me that strength lay not in uniformity, but in unity. We protected those who couldn’t protect themselves. We were supposed to stand up to bullies.
But today, as I place my medals and flag into a shadow box, I feel only shame.
The Betrayal of Values
The Trump administration’s executive orders gutting diversity programs and banning transgender service members shattered the ethos I cherished. Transgender troops, who served with honor—like the Space Force officer who led lifesaving missions in Iraq are now deemed “inconsistent with military ideals.” Their identities, once a source of resilience, are now criminalized. I think of Logan Ireland, an Air Force veteran who once said, “When rounds are coming down range, no one cares if you’re trans. They care if you can lay fire.” Now, those same soldiers face discharge, their decades of institutional knowledge erased.
The military I loved, which once celebrated the Tuskegee Airmen as pioneers of merit, now scrubs their history from training materials. Diversity is branded “woke,” a distraction from “lethality.” But what is lethal, truly, if not the erosion of dignity?
Guantánamo: The New Frontier of Cruelty
Then came the planes to Guantánamo. The naval base, already a stain on America’s conscience, now imprisons migrants labeled “high-priority criminal aliens.” Tent cities sprout like weeds, housing thousands in conditions condemned as inhumane. These aren’t terrorists—they’re people fleeing violence, seeking refuge. Yet they’re held indefinitely, stripped of due process, in a legal black hole.
I remember reading about the Migrant Operations Center, designed for 200 souls. Now, on Trump’s order, they cram 30,000 into makeshift camps, miles from the terrorism prison. Lawyers scramble to challenge this, but the administration dismisses their cries. “Due process will be followed,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims, yet offers no guarantees or evidence to support it.
Echoes of Darker Times
The parallels claw at me. In Nazi Germany, concentration camps began as detention centers within Germany’s borders. Extermination camps followed, hidden outside Germany’s borders, where the world wouldn’t see. Today, Guantánamo sits on foreign soil, a U.S.-leased enclave where accountability dissolves and the public are blind. The administration even floats sending migrants to El Salvador’s ruthless prisons—a deal brokered with Marco Rubio, leveraging military logistics to exile the “undesirable.”
It’s not just migrants. Transgender troops, Afghan allies who risked their lives for us—all discarded. Trump’s freeze on refugee programs strands families like Ruqia Balkhi’s, who survived Taliban threats only to face bureaucratic abandonment. Veterans who once fought alongside these allies now plead for mercy, but their voices drown in the cacophony of politics.
Regret, and the Weight of Complicity
Twenty-two and a half years. I wore the uniform proudly, believing we were the shield against tyranny. Now, I see the shield has become a weapon. The administration paints marginalized communities as threats, exploiting the military’s discipline to enact its vision. They’ve perverted the very institution meant to protect into a tool of oppression.
I am a retired Transgender veteran who served openly under the Biden Administration and first Trump Administration. My son, now 23, has questioned me about my medals and service many times. He asked me if he should join the military to continue my families 300 years of military service. I don’t have an answer for him. I merely looked him in the eye and said, “When they come to collect me and send me off to the extermination camps I hope they send you to get me.”
Conclusion: A Veteran’s Mourning
I joined to defend a nation that promised liberty and justice for all. Instead, I served a machine that cages the vulnerable and exiles the different. The military I knew—where respect was earned, not dictated by identity—is gone. In its place stands a regime that thrives on fear, division, and forgetfulness.
As I close my shadow box, I mourn not just my years of service, but the America I thought I was protecting. A country that once welcomed “your tired, your poor” now seeks to exterminate them. And in its shadow, I am left with a bitter truth: I gave my life to a lie.
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